There are a variety of costs involved with every human endeavour, so nothing is truly free of cost or impact on the environment.
The bean counters will no doubt be able to establish the whole financial cost of producing every Watt of electricity, and whilst it will be a very very complex process it would in theory be possible to work out exactly how much the electricity supplied to you costs but not where its comes from.
As a consumer who purchase's power from the grid, may choose a "green" supplier and you may have a pure green tariff, unfortunately what they can't do is supply you with power only generated from renewables or green sources, because all power generators pump their Watts into the national grid, in exactly the same way that non green suppliers do. There is no way of discriminating green from non green Watts of energy that comes through the wires.
There are some consumers who for ecological principles will choose "green suppliers" but the rest of use will almost certainly choose their suppliers for reasons of cost or convenience. However its often quite difficult to to make direct comparisons between suppliers as they offer so many differing tariffs, It is entirely possible that for some consumers the tariffs from a green supplier could work out more cost effective than non green offerings. The devils in the detail of the tariff.
I seriously doubt there are any " Green Suppliers " who are being deliberately deceitful, There are plenty of checks and balances that dictate how they need to operate, and defines them as being "green"
Its also very difficult to make direct comparisons regarding the capitol costs of installing different types of generation.
The vast majority of the UK's fossil fuel (Coal, gas and oil) generation plant is nigh on 50 or more years old, and probably there were fewer regulations they had to comply with when they were constructed. To make a fairer comparison you would need to get an estimate of how much it would cost to day to build such a power station. But its also more than just the material cost of station. when stations were constructed, they also need many changes to infrastructure of the immediate area simply to service the station with fuel, such as railways and roads, and pipe lines.
By comparison wind and solar farms obviously have the cost of the energy collector (Solar Cells or windmills) and barely need anything other than the land they sit on, There wont be need for railways of any major road infrastructure to enable the plant to operate.
It seems very unlikely that a wind or solar farm's total installation and running costs based on a per Watt produced output will be more expensive than a coal, gas or oil fired station.
The biggest winner is the environment with the overall reduction in damaging emissions over the plants whole life.
The bean counters will no doubt be able to establish the whole financial cost of producing every Watt of electricity, and whilst it will be a very very complex process it would in theory be possible to work out exactly how much the electricity supplied to you costs but not where its comes from.
As a consumer who purchase's power from the grid, may choose a "green" supplier and you may have a pure green tariff, unfortunately what they can't do is supply you with power only generated from renewables or green sources, because all power generators pump their Watts into the national grid, in exactly the same way that non green suppliers do. There is no way of discriminating green from non green Watts of energy that comes through the wires.
There are some consumers who for ecological principles will choose "green suppliers" but the rest of use will almost certainly choose their suppliers for reasons of cost or convenience. However its often quite difficult to to make direct comparisons between suppliers as they offer so many differing tariffs, It is entirely possible that for some consumers the tariffs from a green supplier could work out more cost effective than non green offerings. The devils in the detail of the tariff.
I seriously doubt there are any " Green Suppliers " who are being deliberately deceitful, There are plenty of checks and balances that dictate how they need to operate, and defines them as being "green"
Its also very difficult to make direct comparisons regarding the capitol costs of installing different types of generation.
The vast majority of the UK's fossil fuel (Coal, gas and oil) generation plant is nigh on 50 or more years old, and probably there were fewer regulations they had to comply with when they were constructed. To make a fairer comparison you would need to get an estimate of how much it would cost to day to build such a power station. But its also more than just the material cost of station. when stations were constructed, they also need many changes to infrastructure of the immediate area simply to service the station with fuel, such as railways and roads, and pipe lines.
By comparison wind and solar farms obviously have the cost of the energy collector (Solar Cells or windmills) and barely need anything other than the land they sit on, There wont be need for railways of any major road infrastructure to enable the plant to operate.
It seems very unlikely that a wind or solar farm's total installation and running costs based on a per Watt produced output will be more expensive than a coal, gas or oil fired station.
The biggest winner is the environment with the overall reduction in damaging emissions over the plants whole life.
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